However Improbable
by Enigmatic Insignia
Summary: "It had been seven years and fifteen days since my father was reported a missing person. Legally, he was dead. Literally, we were burying an empty coffin." 17-year-old Sherlock Holmes is sent away to Port Angeles and into the puzzle of his father's disappearance seven years ago. Twilight universe, Sherlock characters.
1. In Medias Res

**Prologue**

I woke up to the sound of screaming The dim beam of an electronic alarm clock cast over the vacant hospital room. Fans whirred. A heart monitor beeped intermittently. An IV bag towered beside my bed, its cord running into my arm.

Three distinct voices passed through the paper-thin walls around me. One shouted above the other distant roars. "Pain… here. Alien… left… ow…!" The man's stuttering matched expressive aphasia.

I shot upright on my sheet-less mattress, ripped the needle from my arm and pushed the cart away. I didn't belong here, trapped in a room for suicide risks. I wasn't mad. I never had been, not that it mattered anymore.

"_Hope you've got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like…" _A song chimed beneath my mattress. The tempo was upbeat considering the lyrics. The audio quality was from a cheap pay-per-use phone. It wasn't mine.

My paper gown crinkled as I slid off the bed and walked towards the corner. I reached beneath the mattress to grab the mobile. The call flashed on screen. No number listed. Not surprising, not that I needed it to know who the call was from.

The moment the phone was in my hand, the call stopped. A text message appeared onscreen. The number was redacted. Two words. "_Knock, knock._"

A thud pounded at the door. A silhouette stood at the frosted window, presumably for me. My heart tensed in my throat.

I sprinted towards the nurse's cabinet. It was supposed to be locked, but if I could push something out, I could find a weapon. I dug my fingernails into the crevice and tried to pull. The door rattled, on the verge of opening. I pulled again. Nothing. I hunched over the counter and braced for another tug. In the time it would've taken to blink, a knife had pressed at the back of my neck.

The blade pointed at where my brain stem would be. Cold fingers pressed around the spot. Moriarty.

"Oh, it's so easy to divert you. Keep being this predictable and you'll stop being fun," he boasted. I could practically hear his attempt at a giddy, childish smile.

I lifted my hands off of the counter and started to bow my head. Before I'd budged even a centimeter, he'd grabbed me by the neck, turned me around and pinned me to the wall. The plastic knife and his sharpened fingernails dug into my neck, nearly drawing blood.

I pressed one hand against the wall, pretending to stabilize myself. I used the other to grab the phone off the counter and hide it behind my leg. My fingers wrapped around the keypad, struggling to map where the letters were. I forced myself to keep eye contact, feigning confidence.

"There's a record I was here. I disappear, hospital'd be sued for negligence. They'll investigate. You may trick security, but I have files you won't find first. That's not a mess you want to face," I bluffed. I typed a message as I was speaking. On the last word, I pressed send. "_Hospital. Come."_

"Like they did for your dear daddy?" he giggled. He paced around me as a vulture to its prey, his eyes locked on mine, and traced an icy finger across my cheek to my forehead. "You're a lot like him, you know. Curious. Gifted. Eyes like a glacier, so, chilling," he shuddered in the most effeminate way he could manage, mocking me. "Pity you killed him. Would've been quite the fantasy."

I struggled not to snap. "Don't pretend that's true."

In what I could only perceive as a blur, he leaned in towards me so closely I could see his pupils dilating to black. "You honestly think the truth matters, here? That's adorable."

He lifted his hands off of me and flicked me back to the wall. I glowered. All he did was step back and smile. "Night, love."

The next second, a wave of pain ripped through my arms. I tried to move, to retaliate, but by then he was already gone. Both my wrists were sliced deep into the ulnar artery and were bleeding profusely. The plastic knife dropped to the floor, covered in my blood. It was the same type of knife they served dinner with in the hospital.

It was two in the morning. No one was near. The wounds would look self-inflicted. My hands shook, dropping my mobile from my grasp. Damn it.

I pinched the skin of my right wrist shut with my left hand and tilted my head sideways to bite the right wound shut. The taste of iron filled my mouth. It had only been a few seconds, yet a likely psychosomatic haziness seeped through my mind, blocking my thoughts with exhaustion.

I pressed myself against the wall and slid across the floor. My left foot nudged the phone. I kicked it towards my left hand and grabbed it. My fingers quivered on the keys as I fumbled through a second text. All I could manage was a word and to press send, "_Now," _before it fell from my fingers once more.


	2. Boredom

**Chapter One**

It had been seven years and fifteen days since my father was reported a missing person. Legally, he was dead. Literally, we were burying an empty coffin.

There was a seventy percent chance it would have been raining. It was odd to see it wasn't. I was supposed to be at the funeral. Instead, I was sitting on the front steps of a stranger's mausoleum, sneaking a cigarette and retreating from a eulogy I'd no interest in listening to. I could still hear my oldest brother's voice muffled by the wind.

"When I was eleven, I failed football tryouts. While I was throwing a fit, my father told me this. When he was sixteen, he totaled my grandfather's car. For three years, he worked to pay them back as a cashier at a grocers'. It was a terrible job he hated every second of, but while he was covering a night shift, he met my mother. If he had never crashed that car, he may have never met her. Life's a chain of experiences. Even events which seem terrible will cause some good with time. The good of his passing is not here yet, but it will come," Sherrinford recited, pausing every two sentences to remember what to say. There may have been flash cards involved.

I took another drag from my crushed cigarette and leaned my head against a pillar of the mausoleum's archway. For a fraction of a second, the world seemed peaceful. Then, I heard footsteps. They were methodically paced, loud and nearly shook the ground beneath me. Mycroft must've stopped dieting, again.

"Mother's looking for you," my second older brother, Mycroft, asked from behind me.

"Not with particular success, it seems," I dismissed.

"She has other obligations."

I drew my cigarette away from my mouth and turned just enough to see Mycroft. My brother was a man of ample skill and idleness, so naturally he was a bureaucrat. Even at twenty-four, he held himself with the proper posture of an elderly politician. The bottom button of his blazer was undone; no doubt it wouldn't fit otherwise.

"To stand in place while they bury a vacant box. To maintain her image. Or to ignore what a disgrace I am. There's quite the list of options. Do you want to pick, or should I?" I answered through an outward calm.

I slipped my cigarette into my left hand, reached my right into my pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. I unfolded the page to show it to him. It was a boarding pass for two flights—one for New York and a transfer to Seattle. "Was it her idea to send me or yours?" I asked.

Mycroft paused for a moment, his gaze wandering while he debated how to respond. "You're accusing me and not Sherrinford?"

My eyes lowered with dulled disbelief. "When is it ever Sherrinford?"

Fully aware he wouldn't evade the question, Mycroft sighed internally. He relented to reply. "She thinks it'll do you good to get away from Sheffield, go somewhere where you and the police aren't on a first-name basis. One of father's old friends agreed to take you in. Some woman by the name Hudson. Before you ask, we're not paying. She said she owed father a favor."

"Seven years posthumously."

Mycroft's mouth curled with the suppressed urge to say something else. He paused before answering. "Mother's too tired to fight with you. Sherrinford already parents her. I just started my position at Thames House. It's the best option we have."

"Quite a subjective statement to make with a 'we'," I quipped. He didn't respond.

I turned my back to Mycroft and stared down at the boarding pass. The imprint of the letters reflected through the crumpled paper. Whatever pretense I'd been fed, the meaning of this page had been clear since I'd found the ticket purchase on mother's credit card statement. I was a mistake being covered up. I raised the page to my eye level, blocking my face from view.

"I could burn this ticket. Disappear. If I switched course in New York, you wouldn't know for at least six hours," I thought aloud.

"I'd find you in seven. Now put out the cigarette."

I raised the increasingly lopsided cigarette back to my mouth and inhaled deeply. "I thought you were relinquishing parental rights."

"Where did you find that? On the ground?" he asked with disdain.

"Aunt Rose's pocket. She was planning on quitting," I answered dismissively.

"Fine. Wallow in your self-imposed isolation. Clearly I can't stop you." Mycroft stepped down to ground level. There were no footsteps, so I presumed he was lingering, likely staring at my back in frustration. I leaned my head back against the pillar to ignore him.

"Before I go, can you do me a favor and promise me you won't get killed?" he asked.

I took another drag from my cigarette. "Well, not intentionally."

"Intentionally promise or intentionally die?"

"Either or both. If the plane crashes, it's past my control."

Mycroft walked away. I waited for ten more before I turned my head towards the grave site. Twenty or so strangers stood around an open pit, watching the casket descend. A few people were sobbing. Most weren't. My mother clung to the arm of her adulterous wealthy boyfriend, weeping for every hesitant pat he would give. Mycroft stood beside Sherrinford and hung his head in a representation of respect. The poses they were taking made it obvious to me; I may have been dressed as a mourner, but I wasn't one of them. Regardless of what the law claimed or how little I remembered of him, my father wasn't dead to me until I saw a body.

* * *

Three months had passed since the supposed funeral. I'd spent two and a half of them in Port Angeles trapped in perpetual boredom. That included today.

Black pavement and pastel houses passed the windshield in a continuous blur of pseudo-suburbia. Gray skies loomed overhead, threatening rain. The tires of an over-worked economy car rumbled against the pavement. I stared across the passenger-side window, observing my surroundings in general disinterest. My eyes stopped on a smudge in the upper left corner. A line, about the same width as two fingers, was streaked across the glass. There were only two typical passengers in this car, only one of which regularly opened this door. Given that this someone in question was me, it must have been someone who wasn't normal.

I raised my right hand to the window, cross-comparing my fingers to the mark. "Did Mrs. Turner borrow your car?" I asked towards the panel.

"No, dear, and you can't, either," Mrs. Hudson answered from the driver's seat. I caught a glimpse of her face in the overhead mirror. Her hair was a consistent blonde only dye could cause, her face wrinkled from time, particularly around her eyes and mouth, and her wedding ring, tarnished by at least five years of not caring, clung more snugly to her finger than it had likely been fitted to.

"You should park in the garage, upgrade external security. Someone's been looking inside."

"Are you sure you're not imagining trouble? We haven't had any robbers since there was that catnapping down on Evergreen," Mrs. Hudson questioned, presumably doubtful. The supposed cat-napping had been two months after I moved in. Her neighbor had left a back window open while there was a hole in her fence. The cat was found two days later in the next yard over, hungry, damp and still with his collar on.

"That wasn't deliberate," I answered.

Mrs. Hudson shook her head slightly. "Oh, Mrs. Brown was a wreck for weeks. That was commotion enough."

The car slowed as we rounded a corner. A pair of long, green signs in the shapes of a mountain range stood implanted in the ground. The words 'Port Angeles High School, Home of the Roughriders' extruded from them in bold white font at least thirty years out of date. I stared at the drivers' side of the car, still focused on the interior.

There was enough dust on the dashboard to indicate that if someone had entered the car, they hadn't made contact with anything Mrs. Hudson didn't ordinarily touch. The few mobile items that were present—snow brush, napkins, flashlight, maps—were common and benign, not things people tended to steal. That might explain why the observing party hadn't broken in. Then again, if the viewer had meant to find something valuable, why would they bother to check a cheap car that was chipping paint?

"If you did want to learn to drive, we could hire a teacher, or I could. I don't mind," Mrs. Hudson offered, misinterpreting me and shattering my concentration in the process.

"I know," I said flatly.

The car came to a complete stop. Mrs. Hudson turned her head away from the window and towards me. She held her position while she stared my way. I returned her gaze through the overhead mirror.

"Sherlock," she called to me, her voice marginally softer than before.

"Mm?"

"We're at school."

"I'm aware."

"Can you please get out of the car, then? I have my podiatrist at nine," she suggested. Oh, urgency. That explained her staring.

I grabbed my rucksack by the strap and pulled it over my shoulder as I climbed out of the car. I kicked the door with the back of my foot, planted my opposite foot on the curb and pivoted to face the parking lot. Mrs. Hudson and the car were stalling just as I was. "You _are_ going to class today, right?" she asked.

I tugged the strap of my bag, shifting it across my back to mimic innocent ignorance. "You're my transport. Where else could I go?" Either the attempt had worked or she chose not to make it her problem, because Mrs. Hudson pulled a lever back into drive and began to pull away. She left the parking lot.

The better part of a hundred students were wandering the open campus. More would arrive soon. About three-quarters of them were carrying umbrellas. Nearly all of them had clustered into small groups, engrossed in pointless conversation either face-to-face or through their phones. Their overlapping chatter fused into an indistinct mass of sound. There was no way I was staying.

I closed my eyes, shifted the strap on my shoulder and entered the crowd. A few people glanced at me as I headed towards the door. I avoided eye contact. No one spoke to me. I returned the courtesy and continued on. Three doors down from my locker to the right side, a classmate was clacking furiously at her phone. Red lips, bloodshot eyes, nails bitten and on the verge of quivering. Most likely relationship drama was at fault.

I opened the door to my locker, blocking her from view. My intention had been to grab my roller-blades and leave. Before I could reach them, a white envelope slid out from the opening and onto the tile floor. I pressed down on the envelope with my foot, pinning it in place, and picked it up. Writing which appeared to say "sherbck hohnes' had been scrawled sloppily across the envelope. The lettering was unsteady, crooked and close-together, likely written with a non-dominant hand, and each 'h' was written as two separate strokes—one an n and the other an l. I'd seen a classmate write this way before. I tore open the envelope and unfolded the piece of stock printer paper inside. The letter consisted of my last yearbook photo with 'x's on my eyes and three words in 12-point comic sans; "KILL YOURSELF, ASSHOLE". Comic sans and caps lock. Even if not through words, he did know how to insult someone.

"Hey, Sherlock. How're you?" a female voice called from my left, disrupting my concentration.

"Bored."

My eyes trailed from the letter down to the half of her I could see from behind her locker. Her left stocking was damp and tinted brown at the knee, right intact, legs tense and close together, not accustomed to some form of strain. She was a good three inches higher than normal. Also, the gray cat hair that occasionally dotted her clothes was conspicuously absent from her shoes. They were new.

"Your trainers need better traction," I concluded.

"Uh?" Her feet shifted. Presumably, she had turned her head around her locker door to face me. I didn't check.

"Your shoes. The outsoles are flat and they have heels in them, No wonder you fell, running in those is a terrible idea."

She paused. "…Okay."

I reached to the top shelf and grabbed my roller blades. The door beside me clicked shut. My door rattled with the impact. The girl paused again, possibly swallowing.

"I was about to head to Physics. Would you…?"

I pulled away from my locker door and kicked it shut. The row of lockers rattled as I stepped back. The girl stood diagonally from me, her hands pulled in front of herself in a mousy slouch that matched her uneasy intonation. I forced the letter between her hands as I passed by.

"Tell Mr. Whitmore I have the flu. Give this back to Rob Talbot; gap tooth, grey hoodie, sits behind you second period. His mother's girlfriend moved in last week. He's been hostile ever since," I explained at roughly the same pace as I thought it.

She paused again, her expression stuck in a wide-eyed stare. I flung my skates over my shoulder as I headed for the exit. At least five seconds passed before she spoke.

"Are you sure you don't want to give this to a teacher?" she called at my back. I didn't answer.


	3. Stranger People

**Chapter Two**

I hadn't cared where I went as long as it met two conditions; it wasn't school and I wouldn't be found there.

It had been an hour and twenty minute bus ride from the Gateway Transit Center to the town of Forks. Another ten minutes on skates and fifteen on foot had brought me to a back porch overlooking the Calawah river. My headphones were clasped over my ears, steaming radio static. No other beings or buildings were in sight. According to local records, the property behind me was registered to one Carlisle Cullen. No one had lived there for months—seven, specifically—yet no efforts had been made to sell the home or its assets.

I turned to face the house. Three stories. Mostly white, clean, modern. A wall-length window ran along the lower-level family room. The view inside was obscured by dirt and water splotches on the glass. No fingerprints or artificial streak marks, so professionally cleaned prior to departure. The furniture was pristine, as was the floor. This was a mansion among bugs and mountain lions. If it hadn't been built for someone wealthy, whoever lived this far from society would've been considered a freak.

I pulled my sleeve over my hand and took a bump key from my pocket. I slowly slid the key into the lock, counting each notch until only one remained. I thrust the key into the door while twisting it simultaneously. The sudden pressure forced the pins in the lock to align, which allowed the mismatched key to turn and me to step inside. I slipped the key back into my pocket, set the lock and shut the door behind me. It wasn't as if I could draw the curtains, so I'd assume the lack of tire tracks, neighbors or English-speaking life forms meant being inconspicuous wasn't a huge concern.

Excluding the window, the primary point of interest was how little character there was to observe. No television. No food. Musty modern furniture that looked as worn in as it would if plucked straight from a showroom. Perhaps it had eyes shifted towards a mural on my left hand side. Graduation caps in any conceivable color had been pinned to the wall. The fabrics were faded differently, so they hadn't been ordered or made at the same time. Odd thrift shopping project, perhaps.

I walked towards that spot on the stairwell with the tentative hope upstairs would have more to show. Three steps up the staircase, the radio scanner in my backpack buzzed with an incoming call. The message passed through my headphones with unusually clear reception for the middle of a forest.

"Unit twelve, 597 at intersection of Forester and Main," the dispatcher reported. Animal cruelty case. Most likely not interesting.

"Animal and injuries?" the officer asked back.

"Deer. Two of them. Bite and scratch marks, looks like an attack dog." A hunter's pet, probably. Unlicensed, if they left the kill behind.

"Check. On route." The radio went silent.

I turned the dial back to the Port Angeles station as I rounded a corner in the hallway, entering the nearest room. A king-size bed rest in the center, still made. An end table stoold on either side. Texts and medical journals filled an overstuffed book shelf. Carlisle and his wife's room, presumably.

I walked to the left table and opened the drawer. Another medical text sat inside. The corner of a glossy photograph stuck out beneath it. I lifted the textbook to see the rest of the image. Seven unusually pale people with identically yellow-brown eyes stared back from the photo; two adults in their mid-20s and five late adolescents. They had no other consistent traits, so not biologically related. Coloration was consistent, so it wasn't photo-shopped, yet something seemed off.

I took my phone from my pocket, opened a facebook browser and ran a search on the graduating class from two years ago. When those profiles showed nothing familiar, I adjusted it to last year. Three profiles and twenty pictures later, I found one. A former classmate Jessica Stanley had posted a photo from an Edward Cullen's wedding on August 13, 2006. It was almost identical to the first picture. His facial expression had shifted, but his proportions, hair, ears-and-nose-to-face ratio, it was all the same. They must've been taken on the same day. This wouldn't help.

I kept clicking through her album until I found another photo of him, this time lurking at the back of a selfie from Jessica's prom. Edward was still the same. The date the picture was taken and had been posted was over a year apart from the wedding, yet he was still identical. Was I losing my touch at identifying doctored photos? If so, what was the point of maintaining a physical appearance to this kind of detail? Witness protection, perhaps?

My thoughts were disrupted by three muffled knocks. The firm thuds rose through the floor and into the room. Someone was outside.

I peered through the side of the curtain, observing the front entrance. A man was standing at the door. He was mid-twenties, blond, his eyes were sinking with faint dark circles from exhaustion, not allergies, and he held a cane in his left hand. His right hand hovered near the wood, about to knock again.

Time to go.

I folded the physical photograph in quarters and shoved it in my pocket while I ran from the bedroom to the stairs and finally to the living room. It would take at least a minute for the stranger to reach the back door with a limp. If I sprinted, and I was, then theoretically I should've made it out the door before he spotted me. I slid to a stop in front of the door, opened the lock and rushed outside. Unfortunately, the porch wrapped around.

"Ah, hello," the stranger called.

The second I heard his voice, I stepped back towards the door. I hadn't set the lock, so I knew it would open. Before I could reach the handle, the stranger stopped moving. My hand froze over the doorknob, recalculating.

"Is this your house?" he asked, his tone straddling the line between curiosity and tact.

Now that I was closer, I could see the wear on his clothes, particularly his jumper. With the exception of his legs, his stance seemed upright and unusually close together, possibly from nerves, more likely from habit. The haircut was uniform, vaguely military but overgrown, perhaps former by at least two months. Wearing at least three layers in moderate weather, so, accustomed to a warmer climate through extended exposure. Clothes laid flat, minimal pockets, so he couldn't have a weapon with him. Most importantly, his question meant he didn't know I didn't belong here. I could work with that.

"No. Cleaning service. Dr. Cullen brought me in. They didn't tell me to expect a visitor," I lied. I blocked the door by leaning against it, my hand still hovering just above the doorknob in case he noticed. He didn't.

"They wouldn't. I was just stopping in to say hello. Do you expect them back, soon?"

"It's been seven months. No reason to think that'll change now," I stated bluntly.

He paused, hesitating. "Oh. That's disappointing," he stated with too little change in intonation for him to have meant it. He was hiding something.

"If you have a message for them, you can always leave it with me."

"It's fine. I can call," he dismissed. His stance began to sway further back onto his dominant leg, bracing to leave.

I took two steps away from the door as I spoke, approaching him more closely. I made a point of speaking while looking straight at him as I spoke. "He disconnected his mobile when he moved. Landline, too, for obvious reasons. I have his email. I'd have to ask him for permission to give it out. What's your name?"

However he responded or chose not to respond, the answer should have meant something. No hesitance was a genuine answer, a moment's pause was likely a lie of statement and no statement at all a lie of omission. He didn't reply immediately. When he did, it was with a twitch-like shake of his head that mimicked a turn to leave.

"It's not that important."

My expression dulled with disbelief. "There's no car in the driveway. You walked here on a limp, of course it's important."

He paused, considering how best to lie.

"John Watson. I was going to apply for his old job. Wanted to be sure he wasn't coming back. We've never met. He won't know me—" No. John was too young to have finished residency. He wasn't qualified.

"Yet I wasn't who you were expecting," I interrupted.

"Well, yes—"

"So you knew the Cullens well enough to know I wasn't related to them."

"I saw photographs of the family, and you just told me," he rationalized, barely raising his voice past a conversational tone.

"No, you told me. You stopped yourself and looked to the upper right before you started explaining. That's image construction, also known as lying." I paused to watch his reaction. For someone who kept lying, John was unusually calm, which was both admirable and unacceptable.

I took another step closer, intentionally invading his personal space, grabbed him by the right hand and stared straight into his dark blue eyes, deliberately not blinking. If he was going to slip up, taking away the natural comfort zone would help cause it. "I know the Cullens were in witness protection. Some truly awful people would like them gone. Prove to me you aren't one of them or I call you in for trespassing," I guessed as if it was a statement.

John's forehead wrinkled with confusion. His stance leveled as he tried to gently pull his hand from mine. "I'm sorry, what?" he asked, his tone rising at the end of the last word. Genuine disbelief. If that theory were true, he hadn't known about it.

I released my grip on John's hand, stepped back and reached into my pocket to find the Cullen family photo. I unfolded the image and held it directly in front of him. "The photographs. They're dated through four years, yet every one of them's identical. Their facial proportions are supposed to shift, but they didn't. What do you think?"

The creases that had formed on John's forehead began to subside. He turned his head towards me. "They're of the same people. Aren't they supposed to look the same?"

I pointed at Edward's face on the picture, then reached into my pocket. I flashed one of the Facebook images of him at John to show him both simultaneously. "No. The size ratio. Ears, nose, hair to some extent. They should grow, yet there's no change. They had to be taken four months apart at most. Pretending they were here longer only makes sense if—"

"Dr. Cullen held his job for five years. That's not true," John stated matter-of-factly. His eyes were locked on me, his expression mildly perplexed, but calm. There were no signs he was lying, at least not intentionally. If that was right, then the photos had to be wrong, or this should have been impossible.

John swayed his weight onto his left leg, as if his consciousness of it was kicking back in. "Are you supposed to be here?" he asked, the very fact he was asking carrying the implication he already knew.

As I took a step away from the door, my headphones began to buzz. The broadcast from the police radio overlapped the world around me. "Seven, a four-five-nine at 221 Baker," the dispatcher recited.

By the time I'd heard the address, the rest of the world faded into the background. It was a break-in at Mrs. Hudson's house, and technically mine. I pressed my hand over the bottom of my mouth, suppressing my frustration. "The ways in which I'm not surprised," I muttered.

"Copy, suspects present?" the officer asked.

"Stand by." The line whirred with maintained silence.

"What's not a surprise?" John asked.

I jolted to attention. John was standing directly behind me, leaning on his cane. His head tilted as slightly as the rest of his stance, projecting even more confusion.

I pushed the door open with my elbow, veered to my right and slid directly past him without a second glance. If I'd looked, it was an opportunity to speak. Best to avoid that. I hopped off the ledge of the porch, landed cleanly on the ground and gave a tug at the strap of my rucksack.

"Lock the door on your way," I called behind me. I didn't hear any footsteps behind me. Good. He wasn't following.

As I was about to round the corner, I took one last glimpse behind me. The man named John was leaning over the railing and watching me overhead. From this angle, his eyes looked almost black in the dimming light. I could see the edge of a raised, boomerang-shaped scar from beneath his left trouser leg-a bite mark with uneven stitch imprints around it. Prior trauma, likely self-treated, but well. He did have medical training. Relatively fresh, if the reddish discoloration was an indication. That explained the limp. It must've been within the past few months since he still had the haircut, perhaps it was the reason he'd been discharged. If it wasn't, it was astonishingly bad luck.

"You know, when someone introduces themselves, most people answer with their name," John shouted back, atypically not hostile about this.

I tightened my grip around the strap and turned my back to him. A smirk crept over my mouth as I walked away. Finally, something interesting. "Think about it!"


	4. A Letter Read

**Chapter Three**

There were four sets of tire tracks imbedded in the mud by Mrs. Hudson's driveway. Three of them were identical in diameter and print, two of which came from the same car. The other one was hers.

I'd seen the police car from down the block. It was sitting in the driveway, attracting remarkably little attention for a quiet street. The neighbors must have grown bored of spying by now. Mrs. Hudson and an officer in uniform sat on the front porch, their cheeks and noses tinged red from at least an hour waiting in the cold. The twenty one to twenty five year old officer's eyebrows lowered with disapproval. The double piercing scars over his right brow wrinkled in kind. The streaked discoloration of partially-removed tattoos formed indents on his knuckles. Former punk turned police. Still proving himself, most likely; explained why the notepad he was clutching was only on the third page.

The officer approached me as I neared the driveway. He held his chin just high enough to look down at me in spite of the fact I was at least 10 cm taller than him. "Sherlock Holmes. Officer Jones of the PAPD. I need to ask you some questions. Where were you between the hours of 11am and 1pm-?"

I reached into my pocket, pulled out two ticket stubs from this afternoon's bus and flashed them both in his direction. "On the Clallam route 14 at 9 and 2 to Forks, respectively. The drivers will corroborate, I'm sure. Even with a car, it'd be physically impossible to go there, come here and go back between times."

"How convenient," Jones sneered.

I strode onto the front porch, placed the tickets in his grasp and turned to Mrs. Hudson. Aside from the wind chill on her cheeks, she looked healthy enough. "I take it you were at your appointment, then?"

"I came back when they called. It was about noon, I think," she answered.

Jones squinted at the tickets. He shifted his glance from them to me. "Why the heck did you go to Forks in the middle of a school day?"

"Because people here know it's a school day. I prefer not to be caught."

Somehow, Jones' eyes managed the miracle of narrowing even further. "Then why would you keep the bus receipt?"

"Because I was listening to the police scanner. Knew I'd need proof. Did you change notebooks mid-investigation?"

"No, I…" Then he didn't have much to go on.

"What have you reported missing?" I interrupted. He glowered back.

"Are you a police officer? No? Then I'll ask the questions and you answer. That's how this works."

"Your primary suspect has an alibi and no motive. That's not working."

"Did I tell you who the suspects were?"

"When you started questioning me before providing a context, yes. How much nothing have you found that you're still speaking to me?"

"They broke a window coming in," Mrs. Hudson interjected. "That's all he knew to tell me." Since I hadn't seen any damage, the window was at the back or the left side of the house.

"Do you know anyone who might want to harm you or your caretaker?" Jones asked.

"Everyone who talks to me."

There was no benefit to continuing this discussion. I needed to leave.

Jones crossed his arms defensively. He raised his chin, subconsciously struggling to look superior. I stared at the front window. The curtains were open. Pots, spoons and tattered packaging were scattered across the kitchen. A crock pot sat in the corner.

I turned from the window towards Mrs. Hudson. "The roast is burning. You may want to check that," I lied.

"Thank you, dear," Mrs. Hudson smiled. Whether it was one of appreciation or understanding, I wasn't sure. In either case, she took the cue to cross the porch. She paused in front of Jones and the door. "I hope you don't mind."

"It's fine, ma'am. You've been plenty helpful already."

While Mrs. Hudson was opening the door, the surface blocked Jones' view of the opposite side of the porch. I sprinted to my left. By the time she had walked inside, I was around the corner. It took at least twenty seconds before I heard footsteps following.

"Hey, get back-!" Jones shouted. I ignored it.

The first wall had been clear, so I continued to the back of the house. The point of entry was obvious. A large rectangle on the ground floor had been sealed with tape and blue painter's tarp. Flecks of glass were scattered across the patio and partway into the grass. I tore through the tape and cast the tarp aside. A circular hole about twice the width of a baseball gaped through the top-right corner of the window. Each crack spread like a web across the panel. Someone had smashed it with a circular weapon, direct contact unlikely.

I placed one hand on each side of the frame, propped a foot against the lower ledge and climbed atop it. Large shards of shattered glass pooled beneath the window, unusually close together for a break of this size. The interior latch at the base of the window was still unlocked. The break was large enough for an arm, but unless the culprit was dual jointed and two meters tall, they'd never reach the latch from this angle.

Jones' footsteps stomped to a stop. "Step down! You're contaminating evidence!" he shouted across the porch. I didn't budge.

"Did you sweep the glass in the interior?" I asked casually.

"No, it's a crime scene. We don't touch crime scenes. Get down!"

"And the front door, was that unlocked?"

"I'll have you arrested for obstruction of justice!" Likely a no, but context made it difficult to tell.

I let go of the window frame and slid down to the pavement. Officer Jones glared at me so intensely it could've recharged some small electrical devices. I kept my hands raised above my head with my palms facing forward, bracing for further berating. Instead, I heard Mrs. Hudson.

"Sherlock! It's time for dinner!" she called through an open window. I'd owe her for this.

Jones lifted his head, presumably towards her. His expression softened. I stepped as far away from Jones as five seconds would take me and stopped at the edge of the patio. A sliver of glass, barely thicker than a needle, glistened beside my foot. I had to ask.

"One more question. Why do you think they broke the window?" I spoke to the floor.

"Because it was easier to smash than a door."

"Wrong. The glass wouldn't spread in the same direction as the impact, not to the extent of reaching grass. They dumped the debris back inside as a ploy. They deliberately broke the window to tell you they were here, and possibly to skew the time of incident." I tilted my left hand to gesture at the back yard, specifically towards the fence. "Dust the fences for prints. Check the locks for damage. Interview the three adjacent neighbors for the exact time the alarm was set. One of them may know."

"I don't take orders from teenagers."

"Then consider it a suggestion."

Before he could reply, I rounded the corner and rushed for the door. I had expected to hear a shout behind me, possibly stomping footsteps. Only silence followed.

I slowed my pace to a casual stroll as I approached the front door. No need to alert the neighbors if I wasn't being chased. I removed a key from my interior pocket, unlocked the door and stepped inside. The savory, vaguely iron-tainted scent of beef filled the foyer. A few imprints of footprints pressed into the carpet-professional shoes, both the same type, one the same size as Officer Jones'. Nothing appeared especially disturbed, otherwise.

I veered to my right and entered the kitchen. Mrs. Hudson stood over the dining table, setting silverware beside two empty plates. I marched directly to the sink, drew the curtains across the window and continued towards the stairs. The subtle clinks of silverware came to a pause as she noticed I was there.

"You should wash up. Dinner will be out in a minute," Mrs. Hudson offered. I didn't stop.

"Not coming. Investigating."

"Alright. Just don't touch the broken window. One hospital visit per day is more than enough." She set another piece of silverware on the table. I walked away.

If nothing had been stolen, at the very least something would be misplaced or left behind. It wasn't as if people broke into someone's home for entertainment, unless they were me, and if that were the case, they wouldn't summon the police about it.

One by one, I inspected each room in the house. Family room – nothing. Foyer – nothing. Mrs. Hudson's bedroom – a faux pearl necklace had fallen behind her dresser. Two years old, not of any particular value. Aside from that, still nothing. The last room left to search was my own. My fingers brushed against the doorknob. The metal was cold, more so than it should have been. I twisted it open.

From an objective standpoint, my room was a mess. This also made it easier to tell what had been tampered with. There was a small indent in the pile of clothes by the door, so I could presume someone else had been inside. That the clothes were gone implied that was Mrs. Hudson doing the wash. The wall adjacent to the door was covered in papers, threads and notes in marker, the residue of attempts to organize my thoughts, none of which were touched. Clothes, books, beakers, electronics and various supplies spilled over the drawers of my open dresser and onto the unmade bed. This wasn't the disarray I'd left this morning. There were two possibilities, neither of the good, though one was clearly preferable. Either the police had come inside and failed to find the only valuable item in my room, or the intruder had.

I slammed the door behind me and sprang towards my bed. I closed one eye and peered into the space beneath it. A few shirts I recalled putting there and one I didn't blocked my view. I reached my arm in, brushed them out of the way and looked again. A pair of old trainers sat in place, seemingly undisturbed. I grabbed the right one by the laces and pulled it out regardless. I sat back against the bed, plopped the shoe onto my knee, picked up the insole between my fingers and tossed it aside. The bottom had been hollowed out to form a hidden compartment. My needles and solution were still inside, untouched. Yes. Good.

I pressed the insole back into the shoe, shoved the shoe under my bed and leaned against the mattress to relax. My eyes drifted across the ceiling was undisturbed, as was my fencing sword, my violin and my tea kettle. Then, I saw something. A copy of _the Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe_ had been stuffed upside-down on a bookshelf it was too crammed to fit on. I hadn't put it there.

Without budging from my spot, I pried the book from the shelf. There was a slight gap between the pages where another one had been enclosed. I opened to the new page. A handwritten letter on torn notebook paper rest inside. The narrow, miniscule scrawl was smeared, presumably by the author's left hand, as he struggled to write with ink that hadn't dried between words.

"Dear Sherlock,

Do not show this to anyone after you've read it. Burn it, if you can. More importantly, forgive me. Had I a choice, I would've never left you.

Seven years ago, I became involved with a monster in human form. It was my eventual intent to take revenge. Instead, he forced me into hiding by threatening my family, including you. He has come to Port Angeles. I know something is at work. I pray it doesn't involve you, but have too much sense to assume otherwise.

Do not look for me. Should the time be right to meet, you will know.

Beware James Moriarty.

- Guess"

It was my father's writing. Fainter imprints of the same color ink were smudged across the adjacent page. The notebook paper was flimsy but unmarred from folding or travel. This letter had been written inside this room, today.

I rummaged through my dresser drawers until I found my father's journal. The weathered leather book was in the exact spot I left it with no new creases on the front from being opened. I flipped through to a random entry and compared it to the script on the page. A near-perfect match, with the exception of the 'y's—they were more lopsided this time. That could be excused. Whoever had been writing did so under duress, and to not have any changes in penmanship in seven years would be unusual. Though, admittedly, no more so than receiving a note from someone who was supposedly dead.

I held the book between both hands to analyze the note more closely. This could be a prank. There were redacted documents with his signature online. It's possible they could have copied his writing from there. No, it was too much effort for a joke. No one at school would be capable of this. The writer would have had to be ambidextrous or left-handed, and familiar enough with my father to create a passable forgery so quickly that the ink wouldn't dry between words. Or the letter was genuine.

I folded the note in quarters, set it in my pocket and put the book back on the shelf. There was somewhere else I should be.

Mrs. Hudson was in the kitchen, washing a stack of dishes. She turned her head just enough to look at me as she spoke. "Ah, that's where you were hiding."

"Did my father ever mention a James Moriarty?" I asked quickly.

She lifted her hands from the water, wiped them on her dress and opened up the fridge.

"If he did, then it's no one I remember. He rarely mentioned friends at work. You could always ask your mother," and I could also always go impale myself. Anything mother knew, she wouldn't say, or at least, she wouldn't say so to me.

I turned towards the stairs to leave once more. Before I could, Mrs. Hudson pulled a plastic-covered plate of pot roast from the fridge. The wrapping was still coated in condensation from the steam. She held the plate so close to me that the rim poked my arm. "You should take this. Eat it. It won't do either of us any good for you to waste away," she said sternly. I didn't budge.

She looked back at me with subdued incredulousness. "Is there a reason you're asking about this person now?" she asked.

I took the plate from her grasp and stared at her blankly. "Yes."

"Can you tell me what that reason is?"

"Wasn't planning to."

A brief silence followed.

"The plate's cold. You could use the microwave, heat it before you leave," she suggested.

"I know."

My eyes shifted to my right as I veered towards the stairwell. A clock sat on the family room's mantle. Ten twenty nine. For all purposes short of a medical crisis or attempted murder, the city was dead. I was limited to skimming father's journal and the internet for now. The search could start tomorrow. I turned forward and continued upstairs to what was sure to be a restless night. It was more likely than not my father was still near Port Angeles, and I was going to find him.


	5. Doctoring

**Chapter Four **

The following morning passed in a trudge of monotony. Picked at breakfast. My father was still alive. Got dressed. He could've been nearing the other side of the world by now. Tried to walk past Mrs. Hudson's car to leave home and investigate. She stopped me halfway down the driveway and forced me into the car.

Odds were at least even that my father hadn't left town yet, since he had made reference to a continued presence. Granted, there were ways to communicate without direct contact like texting or email. Still, it seemed most logical that he'd be staying in close enough range that he'd known where to leave that letter.

Fifteen minutes of wasted time later, I was standing in front of my school. Mrs. Hudson pulled away from the curb. She waited in the same parking spot and watched me intensely until I walked into the building. If I was going to get out of school, I'd have to do it after I was attending it.

It was early enough before class that I had time to take a detour into the cafeteria. I took two mustard packets from the condiment tray and tucked them in my side pocket. The lunch attendant gave me a strange look. I ignored it. I made a second stop in one of the lesser-used men's bathrooms to fill my travel mug with hot water. That time, no one saw. Twenty minutes more, I was sitting in class. I knew it had been twenty because I was watching the clock in the left corner of the room ticking seconds away.

"I assume you've read up to act three, so let's stop looking at the text and consider the implications. At this point, Hamlet has proven his competence in creating his scheme. To us, the reader, his initial motives seem clear, yet as we move forward, we see less of that clarity and more of the madness we may have assumed he was feigning," the teacher, Mr. K, recited off his lesson plan. K was a stout man, late sixties, spoke with a constant wheeze from chain smoking. The nicotine stained his fingers. I couldn't care less what he said.

I heard a tap on the desk beside me. My eyes shifted towards the source. The girl from the adjacent locker was staring in my direction. Her forehead wrinkled with concern. She shifted closer to my side and whispered discreetly. "You look awful. In the modern definition, not the… are you alright?"

I hunched over the desk, closed my eyes and let out an intentionally shallow breath. "No."

She paused for a moment, likely out of concern. "Then maybe, you…"

"How much of Hamlet's madness can we assume is false? Think back to the beginning, to his father's ghost. Did that truly happen, or was it an extension of his decline in sanity?" K lectured with a lack of passion usually reserved for assembly lines workers.

I pressed one hand against my forehead—the universal signal for being in pain and not wishing to discuss it—and raised the other slightly overhead. I waved for K's attention. No reply. I continued to hold my hand in mid-air. An intentional quiver ran through my body. My shoulders slouched under the weight of fake strain. I sat in that position for roughly a minute, holding my breath, waiting to be noticed.

The chair to my right shifted across the floor. "Do you think the nurse would help?" the same girl asked, somehow even more doubtful.

I slid one hand down my face to clasp it over my mouth. I slammed the other against the front edge of my desk, grasping the desk for support as I rose from my chair. My eyes widened with strain that was, aside from a moment of holding my breath, completely fake and, if the stares from the rest of the room were a good indication, fairly convincing. I swallowed a mouthful of air as if choking it down, grabbed the handle of my bag and glanced to the teacher. He was staring back. Good.

I made a point of taking as shallow of a breath as possible. "K, can I…" I cut myself off to lurch forward and choke back another mouthful of air. I spotted a glimpse of concern in the furrow of his eyebrows, enough to assume he believed me. Also good.

Before there was an opportunity for him to think about this farther, I pushed my notebooks towards me with my foot, picked them up, grabbed my travel mug and stood. I staggered my breathing as I passed the front desks and sprinted out of the classroom. The door shut behind me.

The corridor was clean, or as much as it would be for another fifteen hours. Aside from me, no one was in sight, and I didn't count much in this situation. I slowed my pace to a natural stagger and pressed my ear against the wall to listen.

"His motives could be easily reinterpreted as paranoid delusions," the teacher continued. Even through the wall, he was just as monotonous as before.

The girl from before hesitated to speak. "Mr. K?"

"Is this about the lesson or Holmes?" he asked impatiently.

"Both." Another pause. "May I go, sir?"

"If he can run out of class, he should make it to the nurse."

"What if he can't?"

She was still concerned, the exact opposite of what I needed to get away. Evidently, I'd have to be more convincing.

I lowered myself to my knees, set my travel mug on the floor and unscrewed the lid. Steam rose from the cup. I shoved my hand into my pocket, pulled out the packets of mustard and tore them open. I squeezed them into the water, pressed the lid down and began to shake it.

"Ten minutes, Hooper," K caved with sustained disapproval, but too little interest to keep arguing. I could practically see him shaking his head at, ah, Hooper. Alphabetical seating. That made sense.

A chair squeaked across the ground, followed by the light but determined click of Hooper's footsteps. It'd take her thirty seconds to reach the door if she was slow. I turned my back to the door, took the lid off the hot water and mustard concoction, held my breath and gulped it down. One mouthful and I wanted to gag. By the bottom of the glass, my eyes were watering, which, while not the point, was close enough to not matter.

The door squeaked open. Footsteps tapped down the hall at a more rapid pace than normal, plastic heels clicking on the tile. I curled over on the floor, no longer entirely feigning the disgust lurching in my throat, and hobbled to my feet. Her voice chimed behind me.

"I can run, get the nurse here. You can stay, avoid collapsing," she rushed to say, stumbling on her words and a bit on her footwear, also.

I pressed one hand to the forehead and the other to the wall to support myself. "Go away," I ordered, feigning breathlessness.

"But you aren't-"

"Go away!"

The sudden noise startled her enough to stop her mid-step. She stood in place, staring at a loss for what to do. I lifted my hand off of the wall and stumbled forward. The searing in my throat was progressively worse. My steps slowed down accordingly. Still, they were faster than Hooper's, who hadn't budged at all.

I straightened my posture with as much authority as I could manage in spite of the churning in my stomach. "Farther. Go farther."

"But, the nurse. You really should…"

My throat tightened as I struggled to speak over her. "Get back to class. I'm fi-

Before I could so much as finish the word, my stomach churned in protest. I started to move my left hand towards my mouth to block. My hand and the rest of me froze halfway. I vomited on the floor. It was unusually yellow, which may have been suspect if not for the fact that janitors and students didn't tend to examine vomit.

The hand I'd meant to hold myself back with latched onto the wall for support. I leaned against it, struggling to stand upright. Hooper's footsteps clicked against the ground as she ran to my side. "Sherlock!"

Hooper took me by the arm and gently pulled me down the hallway. I tried to turn my arm out of her grasp to walk on my own. It didn't work. She was holding too tightly, and opening my mouth wasn't likely to result in words at the moment. Small as they were, each step forward sent another wave of instability through my head. I shut my eyes, leaned as far away as possible and concentrated on not being sick until there was someone to prove it to.

What seemed to be hours later, Hooper came to a stop. She lifted her hand off of my shoulder. Two loud knocks pounded at a wooden door, presumably hers. "Excuse me?" she called.

I leaned my side against the doorway and opened my eyes just a bit to the door beside me. It was my first time in the northwest section of the school. Nothing was familiar, yet nothing stood out aside from the worn, overly polished nurse's office door. There was a temporary name-tag printed on a label-maker stuck to the nameplate beside it. The two names stared back in glossy black lettering. John Watson.

My pulse and my perception froze simultaneously as I stared at the tag. Hooper tapped her palm against the door. "Nurse!"

The door rattled from the other side, footsteps clamoring, the second more loudly than the first, as if two impacts were made in unison. One of those clicks was a cane. He opened the door.

I did my best not to look, though I caught a glimpse of him in my peripheral vision. His jumper was faded gray, wool, and likely too heavy for the weather. His eyes sank into his face with exhaustion and his stance did the same. It was him.

"He threw up in the hallway. That's why he's, not, well," Hooper struggled to explain, hesitance seeping into every quiet word.

The cane stopped clicking just beside the door. The slide of his opposite foot sounded as if he turned to her. "Thanks. You can head back to class, now." John's foot shifted again, presumably to face me. "Lie down. I'll bring you a pail. Can you drink something?" he asked as if we hadn't caught each other sneaking around an empty house an hour away for no permitted reason.

I couldn't stay. "I don't want to," I muttered.

"Do it anyway. Please."

I stared past the doorway, into the nurse's office, John's office. Two windows with safety locks were implanted in the walls. It was accessible, a few meter drop, but I couldn't walk out while he was watching, which meant he had to leave first. An old computer and a corded phone rest on the small yet organized desk a few feet between each of the two cots. Medical supplies in marked plastic containers rest along the counters, the same lettering as the door, so likely not organized by him. A single person bathroom was built to the left side. If I locked myself in the room and turned on the water, I could use my mobile to call him to the office. No, that'd take too long. What about the phone?

I slipped past the pair in the doorway and staggered towards the cots, intentionally slouching to one side so as to look off balance if anyone was watching. I presumed they weren't since I could hear Hooper and a distinct lack of other footsteps in the background.

"I had to hold him up to walk him here, if that changes anything."  
"Thank you."

"I'll keep extra notes, if you want them. Feel better soon, if you can, which isn't in your control much outside of resting. I mean, bye." Hooper's footsteps pattered away from the door. John's didn't. The door clicked shut.

Before John had more of an opportunity to look closely, I angled my foot at a slant on my next step and tripped myself on nothing. I leaned towards my left and fumbled to grab the nearest object, which intentionally happened to be the edge of John's desk. Papers, a calendar and a couple of pens slid off the desk as I reached for the phone. The desk slipped from my grasp, also on purpose, though I managed to hold onto the phone line. I fell face-down to the floor.

A sudden clamor sounded behind as John rushed over as quickly as the cane would allow. I slipped a hand into my pocket, grabbed a pen, jabbed it through the cord and pulled until the wires snapped. An immediate sense of relief filled me, though I did my best not to show it. The moment he tried to make a phone call from the school line, he'd have to leave. All I had to do was wait.

John's hand nudged at my shoulder. "Can you stand?" He extended a hand from my left, technically in front of me. I pressed both my hands to the ground, leaving the pen in the process, and forced myself to stand. I slipped as far back and to my left as possible to evade his grasp. My back pressed against the wall with increasing rigidity.

John stared directly at me. His right hand drifted back to his side, his palm still open. I could see the wear on his fingers and a lingering stiffness in his posture. A lump formed in my throat at the sight. I sat down on the cot and averted my gaze. It was a dead giveaway I had something to hide, but he wouldn't know what, so I could justify it.

From the corner of my eye, I saw John look away as well. He gathered the papers off the ground, tapped them against the edge of his desk, set the stack back in place and moved on. It wasn't until he was standing in front of me that I'd realized he had picked up two cups and a plastic bucket.

John held the bucket in front of my face until I took it from him. I wrapped one arm around it and slouched over the opening. He then extended the two plastic cups I didn't bother looking at. "If you have to but you think you can make it, you can also use the bathroom. I have Gatorade or water. Take one," he offered.

"I don't want one."

"You'll dehydrate. Pick one."

My eyes shifted to the tiny plastic cups, and then to him. "How do I know they aren't poisoned?"

A look of confusion settled in his face. His forehead wrinkled accordingly. "Why would I do that?" Good enough.

I picked the water off of the tray, raised it to my mouth and took the smallest sip I could manage. It was disgustingly sweet, as I should've expected. I crumpled the empty cup in my hand and tossed it in my bucket. My focus lingered on John. If I stayed quiet, I ran a risk of him mentioning a topic that shouldn't be discussed. It was better I start.

"Must be degrading," I muttered.

"Excuse me, what?"

"Discharged from the military means discharged from your residency. You're an MD, yet you're storing inhalers and clogging nosebleeds. That's degrading."

It took a moment for John to break his confusion long enough to decide what to say. His eyes narrowed in a perplexed squint. "Did you search my name online?"

"No."

"Then how did you know? I never said."

"Well," I lifted my hand out of the bucket and pointed to John's head. "Haircut's overgrown but military standard, a few months out. Posture roughly upright, also military, with the exception of your left leg. Wouldn't be in service with that limp. Not mentioning the tan marks." Halfway through the second sentence, my eyes wandered towards his book shelf. "USMLE study guides are recent, well kept, not yellow, roughly one, two years out of date. If you were just starting, they'd be new, so you passed. Your hands're evenly rough, worn by glove powder with an unusual amount of wear on your right thumb and index fingers on the tip and lower half. Surgical instruments. You've been practicing for an extended period of time, implying you were doing so there. It's November, so you can't have finished normally. Residency matches come in March, so, you're waiting again."

By the time I'd reached the end of my sentence, my throat was sore. My stomach churned with the threat of being sick again. I leaned over my bucket accordingly, though my focus shifted back to John.

He tightened his grip on his cane, his fingers squeezing tightly with possible stress. "Do you do that with everything? Extreme deductive reasoning?"

"Abductive. Deductive's certainty. Abductive's likelihood in context. It's different. But yes," I tried not to gag as I spoke.

John closed his eyes. He exhaled slowly, forcing an outward calm. "If you don't ask why or mention where we both know I was, I'll return the favor." In other words, he had something to hide, and it was significant enough for me to unsettle him.

"I was bored."

Yet again, he squinted at me, though this time with considerably more worry. "What?"

"That's why I was at the house. Boredom."

"I wasn't asking," he tried to defend with less confidence than average.

I looked away dismissively. "Wouldn't ask you, either. You wouldn't reply."

John extended his hand towards my shoulder in an offer of something. I leaned away accordingly. "Can you lift your head? I need to take your temperature," he insisted in the least subtle subject change possible.

"I don't have a fever."

"Yes, but I have paperwork. Roll over, please."

Great. I was being patronized on the same level as a trained dog. "Yes, master," I answered flatly. I shifted across the bed so I was facing John at one of the most awkward angles I could manage. My left foot dangled off the cot and poked into John's side.

John reached around my equally flopped arm and pressed his thermometer into my ear. I lay completely still, staring at him with a deliberately uncomfortable amount of focus. He avoided eye contact and tried not to notice.

The thermometer beeped. John pulled back. My shoulders slouched, my head hovering over the bucket as a second wave of nausea overtook me.

"Ninety nine point five. You do have a fever," he said.

I tried not to gag. "Then the thermometer broke."

John struggled not to express his disapproval. I assumed he was disapproving since it took him ten seconds to answer. "I'll be right back."

John's footsteps pat softly against the floor. Three seconds later, a cabinet door squeaked open. He rummaged through the shelf, searching for something I didn't care to speculate on. I was too entranced by my thoughts and the bottom of my empty bucket to notice. John was hiding something, to the point where he hadn't tried to hide that he was hiding it. Three uneventful months in a numbing town, then yesterday two incidents occurred simultaneously. That couldn't be a fluke, could it?

I swallowed the building urge and poked my head out from the bucket towards John. "Have you ever heard of James Moriarty?"

"I don't think so, no. Is he someone I should know?" he asked back, as surprised by the question as he had been everything else I'd said.

"Not sure."

The wheels of an office chair rattled over wood as John sat down. His filing cabinet slid open, clicking at the final notch. "I'm going to call your parents to pick you up. You should lie there until they come. Keep resting," John instructed. I coughed into the bucket.

"My mother's in England. We'd be here 'til Saturday."

John plucked my file from the cabinet. He opened it against the desk. "Your guardian, then."

"Mrs. Hudson."

"Mrs. Hudson, then."

John turned the page to see the back of my medical file. He entered the numbers into the key pad, picked up the headpiece and pressed call. His expression froze momentarily, presumably the result of the absent dial tone. He rolled back his chair, leaned under his desk and pulled at the phone's cord. The cord, specifically the frayed tear at its back, rose accordingly. His gaze turned to me with subtle exasperation. He leaned upright and reached for his mobile.

"She won't answer an unknown number," I announced.

More exasperated than he was trying to let himself express, John set his mobile on the desk. He pushed his weight against his cane to stand up. "I'll be right back. I have to find another phone. Stay there and keep resting."

"Understood."

I lowered my head into the bucket and waited for the door to shut. When it did, I counted the pace of John's footsteps. Every three seconds, another one passed. Even when I couldn't hear him, I could tell. I waited until he would have reached a fork in the hallway to stand. I exchanged the empty pail for the rucksack I'd dragged in and headed towards the door. I took about three steps before I paused at John's desk.

Aside from the open filing cabinet, my documentation and his phone, the clutter hadn't changed. His flip-phone was perpendicular to his computer's key board. I opened the phone and clicked through the menu for his contact list. There were about twenty names in his contact list. Oddly, none of those numbers were listed by a familial relationship, only by their given names. None of their surnames started with M. The top of the list showed John's own number. 425-224-0587. The area code wasn't from Port Angeles.

Ten seconds of analysis later, I pulled my hand away from the phone to pick up a pen instead. I removed two slips of paper from the pad of sick notes, pressed the pages to an open part of the desk, forged an excuse and left.

I presumed John had gone to the front office, so I turned in the opposite direction. My feet dragged more lethargically than I anticipated, but aside from the slight impairment in stability, I was fine. I slumped as if genuinely sick while I paced down the empty hallway and out of the school.


End file.
